Scrums: Some administrative questions, please

Twice in the House of Commons Thursday afternoon, a question was ruled out of order the Speaker reminded MPs to stick to topics of government administration. It’s not something that happens all that often in question period. The first question came from Liberal MP Ted Hsu.

“Although we cannot read the voter suppression school, the emerging pattern gives away the curriculum,” he told the House. “Mr. Dodds, a Conservative supporter in Kingston, was called several times by a Conservative caller until he said that because of the prison farm closure, he would not vote Conservative. On Election Day he got a call, which sounded like the same person, directing him to the wrong poll. Can the Conservatives explain why we keep seeing this pattern?”

Speaker Scheer stood then and reminded the members that, “their questions have to touch on the administrative responsibility of government.” As such, Hsu’s query didn’t technically require an answer, but Dean Del Mastro, the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, rose to give one anyway. He used the opportunity as a launching pad for a retroactive promo for his party’s policy platform.

“While voters make determinations on who to support for a number of reasons, I understand a lot of voters in the last election made the determination not to support higher taxes and wasteful spending. That is what the Liberals proposed.”

A bit later, NDP MP Chris Charlton stood and noted that, “contracts signed by Conservative MPs with RMG make one thing clear: scripts are created in consultation with clients. RMG was not working on its own.”

She continued: “The minister of finance, the minister of aboriginal affairs, the minister of natural resources, the minister of human resources and skills development and the minister of Canadian heritage spent over $96,000 on RMG in the last campaign. Did their campaigns fund the misdirection of voters? Could just one of them stand up today and tell Canadians what their campaigns paid RMG to say?”

Again, Scheer stood up to interject.

“I would just like to remind members that their questions have to touch on the administrative responsibilities of government, not political financing,” he said.

Outside in the Foyer, Liberal interim leader Bob Rae was puzzled. It seems an election issue would be crucial to government, a reporter posited.

“I would have thought so,” Rae said. He noted it might cause another problem, too.

“If there’s a pattern where clearly he [the Speaker] is saying that there’s no responsibility of the government or any minister with respect to what’s happened, that would cast doubt on all of the answers that … the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister has been giving, all the other debates that we’ve been having over the last two or three weeks,” Rae said.

“It would seem to run counter to that. We’re obviously going to have to follow … how this proceeds.”

In other words, the (seemingly somewhat arbitrary) reminders the Speaker gave Thursday seem to suggest there have possibly been quite a few other questions in the past few weeks that have also not dealt with the administration of government. That would be odd.

Here, for example, is a question from NDP MP Libby Davies from earlier in question period:

The Conservatives cannot write this off by just saying it is some sort of isolated situation. The fact is, RMG merged with Xentel, that has similar dubious tactics. In February 2010, Xentel was fined $500,000 by the CRTC for violating Canada’s do not call list. It was also charged $75,000 in Missouri for “manipulative high pressure techniques to solicit donations.” Sound familiar?

The Conservatives are accusing the NDP of demeaning voters when we ask tough questions. However, what could be more demeaning than funding Xentel and RMG’s unethical behaviour?

That question did not garner any kind of reproach from the Speaker.

Back outside, Rae was asked if he maintained confidence in Speaker Scheer. Rae replied: “I respect the results of his election, yes.”